Background Checks, Taxes

Wednesday

Feb 13, 2013 at 12:01 AM

Two things that just won't work are mandatory criminal background checks on private gun sales and collecting sales tax on all Internet sales. Any free-thinking person should realize this. Here are a couple of for instances:

Two things that just won't work are mandatory criminal background checks on private gun sales and collecting sales tax on all Internet sales. Any free-thinking person should realize this. Here are a couple of for instances:

I sell you a gun, or you sell me a gun. By mutual agreement, that's it, period. If we happen to meet at a gun show, we'll just leave the premises to conduct the sale.

Who would pay for the background checks and who would see them? If I pay, I should see. Suppose for kicks I contemplate a gun sale to someone just to see that person's criminal background. Incidentally, isn't the criminal background of the seller just as important as the criminal background of the buyer?

Sales tax is normally collected (by the seller) for the state in which the sale is made unless the item is shipped out of state. Consider the many thousands of sellers on sites such as eBay on which most of the items sold are shipped out of state. Many of the sellers are low (dollar) volume operations. There is no practical way that each of these vendors can afford to collect the sales tax for every state to which they ship an item.

A federal sales tax on every item sold on the Internet might work. But who wants that and the bureaucracy that would accompany it.

If Florida needs more tax revenue, a state income tax would work, and it would be easy to enforce.